Festival of Hope 3: Belonging

Jesus Gives Us a Picture of Belonging

Belonging is something we all deeply desire. When we hear the word "belonging," we might think of a warm home, family who loves us unconditionally, a community where we feel valued, or close friends who accept us for who we really are. Yet what connects all these images is a fundamental human need: to be part of something greater than ourselves, to be welcomed, accepted, understood, and loved.

Psychological and medical research shows that a sense of belonging is necessary for happiness, fulfillment, and even survival. When this need goes unmet, we experience real pain.

The Journey of Not Belonging

Some of us know this pain firsthand. Moving to a new country—or even feeling displaced within your own community—can shake your sense of identity. Everything becomes unfamiliar: the language, the customs, the unwritten social rules. You become hyperaware of how you're perceived. You might change yourself, wear a mask, constantly shift and adapt to fit in. Yet even as you try, you long to be fully seen, fully loved, fully known.

Many people experience this alienation without ever leaving home. We struggle with feelings of being misunderstood, of not quite fitting in, despite living in the same communities all our lives.

The Baptism of Jesus: A Pattern of Belonging

Let us look at Matthew 3:13-17, which records Jesus's baptism:

Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus replied, "Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased."

At first glance, this may not seem about belonging. But it is central to it.

Perfect Acceptance

When Jesus emerges from the water, God the Father speaks: "This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased."

Imagine hearing those words at the start of your life's work. God, the Creator of the universe, looks down from heaven and tells you that you are perfectly loved, perfectly accepted, and that He is pleased with you. That is incredible.

Comedy Dawn French once shared a story: On the eve of her first school disco at age 14, feeling self-conscious about her weight, her father had a conversation with her. She expected the usual warnings about boys and curfew. Instead, he told her she was uncommonly beautiful, the most precious thing in his life, and he was proud to be her father. She said this conversation equipped her to face life because she felt so loved and supported.

If that paternal affirmation is so transformative, how much more significant is it to hear it from our Father in heaven—the One who made us and truly knows us: "I love you. You are my child. With you I am well pleased."

A key element of belonging is knowing you are loved and supported for who you are.

Lasting Community

Beyond perfect love, we see another dimension: lasting community. Notice that all three members of the Trinity appear in this passage:

• Jesus (God's Son) is being baptized
• The Father speaks from heaven
• The Holy Spirit anoints Jesus as a dove

The Christian understanding of God is that He is one, yet exists in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are equally God, yet individual persons existing in perfect community. The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father; both love the Holy Spirit, and He loves them in return. Jesus belongs to an eternal community of love.

Contrast this with many communities we belong to on earth. A sports team, an orchestra, a social group—they don't last. We win a trophy, top the league, and eventually go our separate ways. That's why reunions exist: they prove that even wonderful belonging is often temporary. We long for community that actually lasts.

But Jesus's belonging is eternal. He is part of a community where deep bonds of love never end. This is what we all truly long for: to be perfectly accepted and perfectly loved, and to be part of a lasting community.

The Reality of Not Belonging

If this picture of true belonging exists, why don't we experience it? What stops us?

The Problem: It's Complicated

We might blame others. Dr. Sam Carr from the University of Bath writes in All the Lonely People:

"Everyone's a sort of jigsaw piece and we want to feel like we fit in and other people often can be the reason we don't feel like we do. Even if they're a friend or partner, perhaps they don't recognize us for who we are or they make us feel invisible or we have to pretend we are someone else in their company."

He's right—sometimes other people do make us feel like we don't belong.

But is that the whole story? Not entirely.

Conditional Belonging

Much of the belonging we pursue is conditional. To fit in, we change our personality, our dress, our speech. We become the person we think the group wants us to be, not who we actually are.

Comparative Belonging

Even when we find a group where we feel we belong, the problems don't end. If it's a sports club or an orchestra, we don't just need to be in the group—we need to keep performing well. We compare ourselves to others: Are they more popular? More skillful? More gifted? Do I need to do more to prove I belong?

There remains a restlessness. It's not the perfect acceptance, perfect love, and lasting community we see in Jesus.

Our Own Resistance

There's one more reason we might not belong: us.

Other people play a role. The brokenness of the world plays a role. But we bring something to the table ourselves. We might say, "Of course Jesus was accepted by God—He's Jesus. He was perfect. We are not." And we'd be right. There is a huge gap between us and God.

In John's gospel, people came to be baptized because they recognized their need of God. John preached that people needed to repent—to turn back to God—because of the ways they had failed and done wrong. They realized their lack of belonging wasn't just about other people or the broken world. It was also about them: their pride, their greed, their insecurities, their need to be number one, their need to be the most popular or most gifted person in the group.

These things block us from truly belonging to groups here on earth. But more importantly, they block us from the ultimate belonging relationship we truly need: belonging to God in heaven, where we experience perfect acceptance and lasting community.

In Jesus, We Can Truly Belong

Here's the great news: we can belong.

Why Was Jesus Baptized?

There's something strange in this passage. All the people being baptized are those who have sinned and failed. So why is Jesus in the queue? He's never done anything wrong. He is completely pure, completely perfect, completely holy.

John noticed this too. When he saw Jesus, he said, "Wait—I need to be baptized by you, not the other way around."

Jesus replied, "Let it be so now, in order to fulfill all righteousness."

When Jesus says this is to "fulfill all righteousness," He means this fulfills God's plan. Throughout the Old Testament, God's plan was for one day to make people holy and righteous through the coming of His great King, so they could ultimately belong to Him. Jesus is saying: This is why I came—to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus Identifies With Us

This is the amazing thing about Jesus's baptism: when Jesus was baptized, Jesus identified with us.

Although He never sinned, although He never did anything wrong, He was willing to stand with people like us. He took our place. He stood where we stand.

Jesus didn't come to set Himself on a pedestal or give us an impossible example. He came to identify with us in the midst of our sin and brokenness, in our need for belonging, in order to rescue us. He would go on to do this fully on the cross when He died.

Jesus's baptism points forward to the cross:

• When Jesus goes down into the water, it's a picture of Him taking our sins, dying the death we deserved.
• When Jesus comes back up, it's a picture of His resurrection, the new life and new power and new forgiveness He brings.

Joined to Jesus

The great truth of the gospel is: when we trust in Him, we are joined to Him. We are united to Him. And therefore we are brought into the same relationship of belonging that Jesus has with His Father.

If we are joined to Jesus:

• Perfect acceptance and love: God looks at you and me and says, "You are my child whom I love. With you I am well pleased."
• Lasting community: We share in the life of God. We belong to Him. We have access to Him in prayer. We are permanently joined together with Him and His people from all around the world.

Our Own Baptisms

This is all encapsulated in our own baptisms. If in His baptism Jesus identified with us, then in our baptism, we identify with Him.

• When we go down into the water, it's a picture of dying with Jesus to our old way of life.
• When we come up out of the water, it's a picture of being raised to new life in Him.

It's an incredibly powerful picture of reality: if we are in Jesus, we can and we do truly belong.

What This Means

For Those Not Yet Baptized

If you are a Christian here who has not yet been baptized, you ought to get baptized. It's not just a religious ritual to go through. It's an incredible picture of belonging and being united with Christ.

For Those Already Baptized

If you are a Christian who has already been baptized, remember what your baptism means this evening. You are joined to Jesus. You are united with Him. That means you are perfectly loved and perfectly accepted by your Father in heaven. You are part of the lasting community of God's people.

For Those Not Yet Christian

If you're here this evening and you're not yet a Christian, we are so glad you're with us. I hope you can take away this truth: true belonging is possible.

Not the kind where you constantly change or reinvent yourself to blend in. Not the kind that will one day end. But belonging from God—the belonging you were made for, the belonging you were created for.

It's a belonging that can transform your life and will never ever end. It's available to each of us this evening through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When you have this true belonging in place, it reduces the pressure to find belonging everywhere else. You're free to belong to different countries, clubs, and groups without needing them to meet your deepest belonging needs—because those are already met in Christ.

And for those times when you feel like you don't belong, you know you are actually undergirded and kept because you belong to Jesus Christ. You are ultimately accepted and loved—imperfections and all—and you are part of His lasting community.